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The Climate Challenge. Same as it Ever Was?

By Andrew C. Revkin January 22, 2008 7:01 amJanuary 22, 2008 7:01 am

I have a story in Science Times looking at the latest round of climate-treaty talks, one month ago in Bali, from the vantage point of Kevin Conrad, the young man who represented Papua New Guinea and shook things up with a strong rebuke of the United States in the final tumultuous session. (An Associated Press video report is on YouTube.) It turns out things were not quite as they appeared.

China and India led a bloc of developing countries pushing for a last-minute shift of the phrase “measurable, reportable, and verifiable” within the text of a “road map” for the next two years of talks. The American negotiators, taken by surprise, scrambled to see if this gave the world’s emerging powers an escape route from any obligations under whatever emerges in 2009. “We are not prepared to accept this formulation at this time,” said Paula J. Dobrianksy, the lead representative of the United States, eliciting a growing stream of boos.

After a series of “interventions” (U.N. speak for statements) by other countries, Mr. Conrad, whose main interest was in preventing total breakdown of the talks, decided to push the edge a bit. My print story gives a bit more context. Suffice it to say that the Americans, following Europe, backed down and accepted the new wording. The fight to extract commitments from China, which has pulled into the lead in annual greenhouse-gas emissions, will continue, even as other countries push to extract commitments from the United States.

In reviewing events in Bali for this week’s story, I reflected on nearly two decades of efforts to use treaty-making as a means of curbing heat-trapping emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and forests. The original 1992 Framework Convention on climate had ambitious pledges, but no teeth. The Kyoto Protocol, added in 1997, created a cap-and-trading system for emissions, but hasn’t blunted the rising tide of greenhouse gases. A story of mine from 1992 is included below, providing a sobering sense of déjà vu.

A negotiator from Pakistan sought to comment during the final session at climate talks in Bali in December. (Credit: IISD / Earth Negotiations Bulletin

Maybe the Bali meeting will be seen as a turning point in the long run. It was the first session where countries committed, reluctantly, to define by a date certain, 2009, a long-term target for limiting the gas buildup. Or maybe President Bush’s parallel effort to extract “aspirational” climate goals from the “major economies” — a polite way of saying major emitters — will be the venue where progress is made. The next meeting of that group comes in Hawaii later this month.

Time will tell. But time is marching on, and emissions continue to climb. To illustrate how little has changed, I thought it worthwhile to post a story I wrote back in June, 1992, at the close of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where the first climate treaty was completed. It is an op-ed piece, published in the Christian Science Monitor around the time my first book on global warming was published. (Don’t worry about a conflict of interest here; the book, Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast, has been out of print for more than a decade).

Before I came to The Times in 1995, I spent a stretch mainly writing books and freelance articles, during which I could express personal views. I have a different journalist role now, of course, so keep that in mind as you read on. Some of the science has evolved, of course, but the broad-brush issues remain the same. (A similarly sobering look at how Rio’s divisions and issues were little different than those in Bali can be found in this archive of stories on the summit from The Times. The one huge difference is that China wasn’t even mentioned in those days. That, of course, makes the situation now even harder.)

Can you think of ways to break the longstanding deadlock over the interrelated issues of supplying energy for a growing world while limiting climate hazards?

Let’s Be Sensible on Global Warming
Christian Science Monitor, June 30, 1992
By Andrew Revkin
Andrew Revkin’s latest book is “Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast,” published by Abbeville Press in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History’s new exhibition on climate change. His previous book, “The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest,” won a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.

At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro an army of environmental activists and members of the press talked of the need to “Save the Planet” as if we were on the brink of a climatic apocalypse that will turn this rare blue sphere into a cinder of bedrock. Hardly likely.

Meanwhile, a counterforce of conservatives charged that the threat of global warming is overblown, and any actions to fight it will ruin the economy. George Bush, who continues to label environmentalists “extremists,” has embraced this view. Columnist George Will has even written, “Some environmentalism is a ‘green tree with red roots.’ ”

With all this hype, it might be useful to check the facts and see if we actually know anything about how humans may be meddling with Earth’s atmosphere. There are hard facts. And some sensible people actually have well-reasoned proposals for dealing with this matter.

1. There is a greenhouse effect. Water vapor, carbon dioxide, and a few other atmospheric gases act like the glass panes of a greenhouse, allowing sunlight in to warm the planet but preventing heat from escaping.

The proof is that Earth is warm. Without its insulating blanket of “greenhouse gases,” the planet would have an average temperature of zero degrees Fahrenheit instead of the balmy 59 degrees we currently experience.

2. Concentrations of carbon dioxide and several other greenhouse gases have been rising at an accelerating pace since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Locked in bubbles of ancient air trapped in glaciers is a precise record of carbon dioxide stretching back 160,000 years. In that span, the amount of CO2 in the air fluctuated between 190 and 280 parts per million — low during ice ages and high during warm intervals.

But CO2 never rose higher than 280 parts per million until around 1890, when the burning of fossil fuels and forests began to generate enormous amounts of this gas. The concentration now is 356 parts per million. That’s a 22 percent rise in just over 100 years — a rate of change far faster than anything nature has come up with. Barring some miraculous post-Rio conversion, levels of carbon dioxide from human activities will double from pre-industrial times in the coming century.

3. The planet is warming. There has been some criticism from skeptics who say that temperature records are inaccurate. But other data strongly support the idea that things are heating up. Temperature readings in holes drilled through permafrost in the Arctic show a sharp recent warming trend. The winter snow pack covering the northern hemisphere has retreated markedly over the past few decades.

So, these are a few of the facts: certain gases warm Earth. Concentrations of these gases are rising rapidly because of human activities. Finally, the global temperature has risen significantly since levels of these gases began to rise.

Obviously, the case is not open-and-shut. It’s still possible that the current warming trend is some natural variation caused by factors we don’t understand. One thing seems fairly clear: If levels of carbon dioxide continue to rise at the current rate, there is a significant chance that disruptive climate shifts will occur within the lifetimes of children born today. The list of potential consequences is familiar: coastal flooding, searing droughts, wars over shrinking water supplies, accelerated extinction of species.

In essence, by fiddling with the global thermostat, we are conducting a potentially hazardous physics experiment. Things might turn out just fine. Or they might turn out terribly. The trouble is, we’re all sitting in the test tube.

Some people maintain that even if a dramatic climate change does occur, we’ll adapt without too much fuss. Others insist that actions can be taken today — such as greatly increasing the efficiency with which we use energy — that will cut the risks of climate change while offering society other benefits.

That was the conclusion of the National Academy of Sciences, which last year reported, “Despite the great uncertainties, greenhouse warming is a potential threat sufficient to justify action now.” One of the authors of that statement was Robert Frosch, the head of research for General Motors Corporation — hardly a radical environmentalist. Unfortunately, quiet, sensible voices such as his have been drowned out in all the noise from left and right.

Global warming presents a critical test of two uniquely human attributes: reason and foresight. It is up to all of us to seek out the facts and decide on a course of action.

Well lets add a few concepts to what you discussed.
1. Labeling people who are skeptical as equivalant to holocaust deniers is odious. I went to Dachau a couple years ago and to use such things for enviornmental arguments is disgusting. Also Outlandish claims of the coming end of the planet only reinforce skepticism.
2. Al Gore’s movie and its questionable arguments such as Katrina was caused by Global Warming also reinforce skepticism.
3. There is a connection between many people who hate captalism and some people who are using Global Warming as an anti-market weapon.
4. There are many people who earnestly care about the enviornment and very patriotic Americans. (I was living with a buddy when 9/11 happened. He is a big time enviornmentalist and very concerned about Global Warming, he was the first person on the block to drill a flag from his house to represent the USA.)
5. There is room for compromise between very different opinons. Solar panels on roofs helping a power grid based on nuclear energy seems realistic to me. Hybrid cars and drilling in Alaska also work.
6. Have courage, we are Americans, this is nothing compared to what our country has been through in the past.

The problem with the reasoning of global warming NON-deniers occurs in your graf 10, “So these are a few of the FACTS [emphasis mine]…Concentrations of these gases are rising rapidly BECAUSE OF HUMAN ACTIVITY.” [emphasis mine]

OK, so let’s agree temperatures are rising, though I’ve heard critics argue that the data supporting that may be flawed. It is NOT a fact that rising temperatures are caused by human activity. That’s a hypothesis and, arguably, a reasonable ASSOCIATION, but cause and effect has hardly been established, and I understand it’s not clear whether global warming causes an increase in CO2, or vice versa. The willingess of climate alarmists to beat critics over the head with such “facts” is what inspires counter-alarmism.

It is a fact that the earth has been around for much longer than the 160,000 year climate record you point to, and it’s not a “fact” that CO2 “never” exceed 280 ppm–another of your loose “facts”–because we’re missing a few billion years of data. You also pointed to melting ice in the northern hemisphere, but failed to mention the other half of the planet and the fact that antarctic ice is growing at present, not shrinking.

Finally, if the manmade global warming THEORY is correct, the planet must NEVER get cooler, as long as manmade CO2 emissions are sustained at current levels or increase. I can’t wait for the explanations when that happens–as in that movie “The Day After,” in which it is revealed that global warming actually leads to an ice age because the Gulf Stream gets re-routed and no longer warms the North Sea. (It’s futile, of course, to argue with climate alarmists.)

I blame climate VARIATIONS (it’s a fact that the planet warms AND cools over time) on variations in the intensity of the still not completely understood sun, which seems to be a bit bigger than ego-centric man and all of his factories, transport vehicles, and methane-emitting cows. I’m not a scientists, but I have a much greater respect for “facts” than many climate “scientists” seem to have.

A very telling story. It could be published today with only a few words changed and probably few people would realize it wasn’t written yesterday. The science and potential solutions have not changed dramatically in the last 15 years. I think the major change is that mainstream America seems to be listening and worried. It passes the grocery store test now. Stand in a grocery line for a while on a warm winter’s day and someone will likely mention global warming as the cause.

Whether or not you can attribute specific events, like hurricane Katrina or exceptionally warm winter days, to global warming is debatable. That many people now accept global warming as the possible cause is not.

And I don’t recall anyone ever labeling environmental skeptics as equivalent to holocaust deniers. Certainly not in this article.

If the earth’s warming is caused by man, only NET decreases in carbon loading will help. This can only be achieved if care is taken by all — Gore & RFK to name just two — to reduce their respective carbon footprints. This means — in no uncertain terms — not flying around in jets to get out their self determined “important messages” when teleconferencing is less impacting. It’s not as much fun obviously but is the only RIGHT choice. Don’t be a bigger hypocrite than you otherwise are by having more than one home — no ski chalets and no summer homes (Gore has how many homes in how many different locations?) — and that one home should be totally off the grid and no more than 2500 sf. You should not have more than one car and that should be a hybrid and poplation should be reduced in order to reduce demand on the planet’s limited resources — this means families like the Kennedys need to get out of the baby business for the next two centuries. How many decendants have old Joe and Rose produced to date?

China and India have significant coal deposits. That fact alone determines the future of global carbon emissions. Perhaps if we had an worldwide immediate embrace of the only off the shelf significant substitute for combustion, nuclear fission, we might start to bring those numbers down. Don’t hold your breath.

The first thing to be done if people are serious about reducing CO2 in the atmosphere is to replace coal-burning power plants with nuclear plants. These emit no carbon dioxide, and a number have been at work in the United States for decades, with no fatalities or bad effects on their neighbors. Meanwhile, hundreds have died in coal mining accidents and coal-fired plants continue to pump (greatly reduced) pullutants into the air.
Americans talk a lot about climate change, but it appears to be just talk, even for the so-called advocates of green lifestyles.
We could reduce the use of fossil fuels by living in smaller houses (the size of earlier generations’ homes would be a major improvement), driving smaller cars, living as close to work as possible to cut down on commuting, and car pooling. Instead, to the limit of our resources, we tend to follow the horrible example of Al Gore, who lives in a huge house and flies around in a private jet that consumes as much fossil fuel as 20 SUVs.
It looks as if the only thing that will change the profligate ways of American is $20 a gallon gasoline and electric bills of maybe $1,000 a month.
Then the talk might be backed up by action.

In 1991 I wrote a letter that I made into a play draft with hopes it could become a film. It is called “A Meditation On the Future and Progress of the World”
scene one is about the nice things about our planet
scene two, that is brusquely about the possibility of doom, has members of a chorus saying:
1) This is my world and it is endangered by Nuclear war
2)…..endangered by nuclear wastes
3)…..by toxic wastes
4)…..by ozone depletion
5)…..bt deforestation
6)…..by making animal species extinct
7)…..by the Greenhouse Effect
8)…..by the burning of fossil fuels
9)…..by too much trash
10)….. by pollution
and I might have added overpopulation
and others could add to the list
I also had suggested a play about Chico Mendez that the political puppet theater I worked with produced and toured.

I guess the point is that this is all frustrating and absurd. The reconciliation needed to curb the dog is one of schooling and training, reasoning and rational. At the same time there are those raising pit bulls and like to see them fight and bleed and are sort of apologetic when they attack a neighbor and/or his property.
Some people say, “there is nothing new under the sun,” while we now know that is not true.

On “breaking the deadlock” – $100/barrel oil helps a lot with the argument that we need to get off fossil fuels; unfortunately it’s unlikely high prices will afflict coal any time soon, which is really the more serious problem.

Andy, you’re absolutely right that the basic facts regarding the science issues haven’t changed – except to become much more convincing on the warming side – since 1992.

What has changed, unfortunately all too slowly, is public opinion. Misinformation is still rife, and while there are many sources, there are a few clear beneficiaries of blocking the road to new energy and transportation solutions, some of whom are most certainly funneling a lot of money into campaigns of confusion and misinformation. The coal industry is sinking $35 million into anti-global-warming advertising right now: //www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011702837.html
– you wonder why they don’t put that money into mine safety or something useful…

The obstacle is the huge amount of money the current energy players have: trillions of dollars in annual revenues, and trillions of dollars in sunk capital investments and market valuation that would be lost in a switch. It’s a huge ship that we need to turn around here, but I do get the sense it’s very slowly and gradually making the turn. The US installed over 5 GW of wind capacity last year, and every kWh coming from wind is displacing fossil CO2 emissions and helping things along. Just grow that wind and other renewable components by another 45% per year for a decade or so and we’ll be really seeing significant change coming along.

New presidential leadership wouldn’t hurt either. The change in energy policy from Carter to Reagan and those after him is largely what put us where we are today; the choices championed at the top make a huge difference. So, there’s certainly a lot of reason to hope that, after almost two decades of battle, we’re finally on our way to really addressing the problem.

Robert, I feel that your comments are derivative of the same rhetoric we hear all too often from TV and such. They have nothing to do with the article above. This article had a very simple and undeniable argument.

The argument of the article is this:

We don’t know whether or not global warming is actually dangerous, but we should lower emissions rather than continue our current habits in hopes that things will turn out alright.

The point is that if we sit back and hope things will turn out alright, we’re taking a risk – even if that risk is near zero. It is not worth it to take even the smallest risk, when that risk involves all of us going extinct.

Thanks for the sobering perspective, and the flashback to 1992. Is there any good news? Europe seems to set some hopeful examples of how GHG reductions can be achieved without economic havoc – but even in Europe, there is a long way to go. In North America, green building should be viewed as some of the low-hanging fruit, but progress there is not fast enough. Further, it’s amazing how even when something like better fuel economy is promoted with a “freedom from foreign oil” pitch, it cannot take hold. The CAFE standards in the new Energy Act are the weakest possible compromise, California was denied permission for a more aggressive approach, and North America is now headed for no better than fuel economy standards in 2020 that Europe met around 2003. Depressing.
A big problem is that policy is not tracking the best available science. Britain and Canada are looking at policies to achieve 50% reduction in GHG by 2050, but he best science (IPCC and other) indicates that the reductions have to be 80-90%. George Monbiot’s book Heat takes an hard, honest look at technologies that would meet this needed reduction – but we had better get going! At the very least, the California CAFE standards should be allowed (many Canadian provinces will pick them up), green building standards should be aggressively adopted at national and sub-national levels, and a cap and trade system should be instituted at global and national levels.
The root of the problem is two-fold: 1) economic growth is a sacred cow and 2) no serious global discussion is taking place right now on over-population. Human ecological impact is a function of technology, consumption and population. Technology is the easiest politically, and so all the talk goes into fantastic hopes for future technologies (eg no higher fuel standards now because hydrogen cars will save the day around 2030; don’t worry about coal, we will just bury the C02; etc.) and there is no serious attempt to drive down population growth (and the problem is too many rich people, who produce more GHG, as well as too many poor people) and tell people that some economic pain might be necessary now in order to avoid economic disaster later.

There is no proof that the global warming that we are experiencing is coming from emmissions or coming from our proximity to the sun. I don’t care how emotional or compassionate you feel about this issue it doesn’t make it true. Supply proof based on historical data and maybe someone will believe you.

Fiddling with the thermostat, as you put it, is indeed something to avoid in particular since the thermostat is connected to such a complex heating system. The model on which some are proposing to base this plan is so complex that the idea of keeping the earth’s temperature within the 2 degrees “ideal” or “normal”, as has been suggested, is ludicrous and I think dangerous.
The debate about what the data suggests has largely been one of name-calling and strong-arming. I notice that the name “Denier” is now being used with an upper-case letter “D”.
I am a strong proponent of controlling pollution, not just CO2 (soot has done much to reduce the ice’s albedo) and it is preposterous that China is being given such latitude as a “poor nation” when it’s also building skyscrapers by the dozen, nuclear submarines and a space program while effectively employing its youth as feedstock for manufacturing goods subsidized by their government.
And finally, actual debate is not including the emergence of new energy sources, fusion based technologies are being developed that will do for energy what the micro chip did for information. At that time our ability to address the environmental distress, including pollution from our factories and lifestyles, will be more realistic.
Let’s keep the issue of climate health realistic and free from the kind of panic that is destined to lead to bad policy while further entrenching influential idealogical forces which have seen a path to power by framing the discussion as one between good and evil.
In other words, if Freeman Dyson is a “Denier” then so am I. If I am a “Denier” then so are the very people we should be integrating into a comprehensive understanding targetting solutions.

Robert Verdi, echoing George Will’s comment about “green trees with red roots,” seems to think that anti-capitalism is at the root of environmentalism, especially the concern for global warming. There is, of course, a direct link (not a matter of ideology) between much capitalist activity and the increase in greenhouse gases. But, as we see again in the article in today’s Times about the Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration, capitalism and environmentalism need not be mutually antagonistic. I think one of the most encouraging developments in the past year are the actions by leading corporations to take climate change seriously–more seriously than the current administration in Washington. It is not constructive to charge environmentalists as being anti-capitalist. At any rate, we can all applaud enlightened capitalism.

This article, written in what seems like a long time ago, underscores that it is time for drastic action to ward off the worst effects of global warming. That is why my suggestion has been and still is: requesuriing of CO2. It is expensive but that is the type of drastic action that is needed now.
However, that doesn’t stop the fact that there are other ways to combat the effects of global warming and I think all ways should be used immediately.
Ruth Beazer

There is no end to the weaving and dodging the anti-climate change hucksters can pull off. I work with them daily and their position has degraded from “it’s not getting warmer” to “it’s not mankind’s fault” to “well, even if it is mankind’s fault, it will be ok.”
If you look up any report printed by the Bush Administration, find the authors, then Google their name and the word “exxon” or “bp” or “petroleum” you will find pages and pages of results linking the two. Essentially, any report from Washington concerning climate change may as well have originated in the PR office of Big Oil. Only when the villas and yachts of the wealthy begin to go underwater or become uninsurable will this problem be addressed. These people surely cannot wait for the next corn or wheat failure because they’ve become adept at profiting off of catastrophe. Like a man with a toothache, things have to get much worse before they get better.

Today (and on many other occasions), it seems fit to quote Martin Luther King Jr.:

“The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.

And he has good company:

“It is all too evident that our moral thinking simply has not been able to keep pace with the speed of scientific advancement.”
– Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama, from his article “Our Faith in Science”, The New York Times, November 12, 2005

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
– Thomas Jefferson

Although I applaud Andy’s efforts and DotEarth, nevertheless, in an age where the media have such an immense role and influence, there is a very basic (and obvious) problem when we’ve been aware of such an immense issue (as global warming) for so long and yet, even today, the issue is not one of the top issues in polls of voters.

So …

Nearly fifty years ago, Edward R. Murrow delivered his remarkable speech at the RTNDA convention, soundly criticizing the media’s approach (especially TV and radio media at that point) in the U.S. The 50th anniversary of the speech will be on October 15 this year, just before the presidential election. Although I read the Times, daily, I get tired when members of the general media ask, “why aren’t people listening?” (It’s a bit like one entertainment-oriented show on CNN that frequently critiques starlets and models who are too thin, along with the resulting pressures on young girls these days, and then proceeds to focus on glamorous and very thin celebrities every night. You wonder, sometimes, if they are aware?) In any case, every member of the Times’s leadership, as well as leaders of CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, and so forth, should (in my view) read Murrow’s speech in its entirety. To me, it makes more sense to discuss the question raised in this thread, AFTER that.

Short portions of the Murrow speech are reenacted in the great movie, “good night, and good luck.” But, it’s very helpful to read the entire speech, which isn’t all that long. Transcripts of the speech can be found on the web using the key words Edward R. Murrow, RTNDA, October 15, 1958.

Given the day, I’ll end with another relevant quote that can also apply to the media:

“Her greatness lay in doing what everybody could do but doesn’t”
– Jennifer Granholm, first female governor of Michigan, speaking of Rosa Parks

The term ‘Global Thermostat’ is telling of the mania of the Left. That shows the extreme mentality and overblown sense of your own power in determining the future of the planet. You on the Left actually think that you can ‘adjust’ the temperature! The real driving force here has nothing to do with the Climate Change (nee’ Global Warming) and has everything to do with the obsessive desire to control the lives of individuals. This is shown in the anti smoking drive (no smoking in your own home in some California towns) to the government controlled thermostats to all the public cameras watching our every move. The intent here is complete control over our private lives – just wait, complete control is coming – in many European countries you already have to have an ID in public, cars are banned from city centers and so on. The climate is a perfect vehicle to advance the Lefts’ agenda – the hypothesis of CO2 warming the globe is not falsifiable in the short run so it becomes a semi-religious argument whereby anyone that does not ‘see’ the Truth is simply not part of the Cult and is either shunned or in extreme cases, persecuted. Just go back and list the manias that have preceded this one: Global cooling in the 1970s, AIDS, SARS, Bird Flu, Y2K, Mad Cow disease, etc. All of which proved to be either overblown or not a real threat at all. The only real threat, terrorism is a threat that actually has killed people and that the Left wants to ignore.

Mr. Ward:
1. Where were they compared? Some irate comment on a blog somewhere? What scientist, what public figure has called global warming skeptics equivalent to Holocaust deniers? Glen Back, on the other hand and on CNN Headline News, has compared global warming proponents to eugenicist Nazis.
2)You disingenuously bracket two unrelated things, in hope of discrediting both. Coupling a careful and largely accurate movie with somebody somewhere’s irresponsible idea is dishonest–and the sort of cheap rhetorical trick seen all too often.
3) Hate capitalism? Who? ‘There is a connection’? Where? Large corporations who fun global warming denying organizations draw anger, but that’s not hating capitalism. A free market cannot work unless the participants have accurate information. That’s one of the grounding principles. Anyone who believes in the free market must be an advocate of proper information. An oil company that pays to distort the science in the public square is anti-capitalist, and defending them is so as well.
4) I’m an ex-New Yorker who had friends blocks from Ground Zero. I’m a Patriotic American. I believe that the Republican Party is a blight on the body politic, I believe the Iraq war is immensely dishonorable, I believe that anyone who excuses torture is a villain, and I believe that the conduct of the current administration has been nothing short of criminal. I love my country, and I want it back on track.
5. I agree with you that nuclear power has a place in this solution, and there are many who do. But how on earth is finding more oil in the ground going to help the fight against global warming?Honestly, do you even understand what this is all about? We need to reduce our output of greenhouse gases and you think that getting more oil out of the ground is part of the solution?
6. We met the crises of the past by vigilaance, courage, self-sacrifice, and determined action. That’s why we have prevailed. No matter how much we have been through in the past, if we do not rise to meet this challenge, if we stick our head in the sand, we will fail.
The trumpet is sounding, robert. Will you answer its call?

The truth is that no one really knows what the effect of additional CO2 in the atmosphere is. True, CO2 levels are higher than in most of our past but water vapor, not CO2, is the major “greenhouse” driver. Higher CO2 may be irrelevant. When challenged about misstating the science in his movie, Al Gore said, “the scientists don’t know, they just don’t know”. I couldn’t have said it better.

Such a piece of work is man. We plot and toil and preach as though we comprehend, but the elephant in the room remains described as disparate pieces–global warming here, global energy crisis there; global jihad in that corner, globalization dancing about over yon; is the elephant even the enemy? Power corrupts, and the squabbles over it disrupt and destroy. We no longer carry the seeds of our own destruction; they’ve long been sown. Inappropriate pride in a puny intellect will prove our undoing.

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By 2050 or so, the human population is expected to pass nine billion. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. Dot Earth was created by Andrew Revkin in October 2007 -- in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship -- to explore ways to balance human needs and the planet's limits.